Rare Derby Tile Co. Arts & Crafts Tile
Condition: Good Price: £275 (approx $419) Ref: #03561 UK Special Delivery £283 EU Airsure £287 US and World Airsure £291 Currency Converter Half a dozen rim chips and some wear to the high points mostly on the larger flower otherwise glaze surfaces are near perfect and have excellent brilliance.
• Style/technique: Arts & crafts majolica • Manufacturer: Derby Tile Co of Belper • Dimensions: 6" x 6" • Date: design registered 1898	What a fabulous and rare tile decorated with a flowing floral design that bridges the period from the popularity of arts & crafts design to art nouveau. Excellent quality manufacture and the most superb colours this is a real treat for the lovers of designs and colours let alone the historic merit. Wonderful colours for the poppies, peachy pinks and purples, lovely movement in the design, flowing well, filling the tile whilst being fully asymmetric and all set against an unusual textured ground creating a mottling effect in the rich green glaze. Even the background deserves a special mention for rather than merely being dimpled as is usually the case it is sculpted to represent a background of leaves as we see when viewing flowers in their native environment. This kind of tile made before art nouveau achieved full expression and more floral/arts and crafts in style than art nouveau but one can surely see the move in that direction. In the late 1880s and 1890s designers addressed the challenge of the modern majolica technique, the fine line accuracy of printed wares not achievable with moulding processes and further softened by the overlying glaze so designers adapted their designs to the modern processes. Made by Derby Tile Co of Belper, Derbyshire, a company whose wares are not often found and to my knowledge none in majolica. It is amazing how some of the smaller manufacturers produced such excellent tiles and indeed many of such get wrongly attributed to companies with popular brand names. Adding greatly to the rarity is the presence of the design registration number indicating the date of early 1898, to my knowledge the only Derby tile found with a registration number verso . Verso embossed D.T.B. and design registration number. DTB tiles have previously been attributed to Doulton and are 'positively' identified as such in the literature, this tile puts the record straight. Even if it was a Doulton tile it would be in the upper echelon of their wares especially in terms of techincal complexity, for the relatively unkown company of Derby Tile Co this is an outstanding piece of craftsmanship. An excellent tile with broad appeal, majolica and floral tile collectors, afficiandos of colour and design but also the student of styles, tile researchers and those interested in the history of Belper and Derbyshire.
The image is full size at 72 dpi (about 430 pixels wide) in maximum quality JPEG format and on screen is about the size as it would be in real life at the same distance. A larger 120 dpi image also in maximum quality JPEG format can be forwarded by email if required. The image is a little oversize rather than cropped close to the edges so that the edges can easily be seen and any chips etc can be quickly spotted. Other marks described are usually not visible at all when the tile is viewed straight as one normally sees it and can only be seen with a critical eye when the tile is tilted to catch imperfections in reflected light. For more details of how we describe marks see Condition.

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